Posts

First-time homebuyers made up 18% of Australian mortgages to owner-occupiers in January, the most in more than 5 years, says the Housing Industry Association. Helping newbies enter the market has been steps by some state governments in mid-2017 that included cash grants. Policymakers, including at Australia’s central bank, should welcome the development amid earlier concerns that younger buyers had been frozen out of the market and investors have been borrowing less.

A proposal to scrap Australia’s tax break on dividends would hit many retirees, says an industry group representing the country’s fund managers and life insurers. The Financial Services Council also contends that constant tinkering with rules governing superannuation pensions would erode confidence and undermine Australia’s trust in the system, possibly pushing retirees and others who benefit from the tax break out of stocks and into property and bonds. The Labor opposition, which is leading opinion polls, pledges to end the system that offers a tax repayment to shareholders where the tax credit on a dividend is more than the tax they paid

The people of Britain voted for a British exit or “Brexit” Clearer Picture Will See Sterling selling return.

The sharp pound sterling selling has paused for now, but it could return in the autumn once it is clear who the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister is and how Brexit negotiations will progress, says Audrey Childe-Freeman, founder and chief strategist at FX Knowledge. Real-money, or longer term investors, will also wait to see surveys and data that reveal how hard Britian’s vote to leave the EU is hitting the economy. “We could be setting up for quite a shaky autumn period,” she says. “We will have another wave of sterling weakening when we see numbers out of the U.K.” Weak data will come at around the time the new Conservative leader is announced in September, she adds.

Scope For GBP Rally to “Dissolve”.
GBP/USD trades up 1.2% in a recovery from hefty selling in the wake of the U.K. referendum vote to leave the EU last week, which took it to a 31-year low around $1.3100 on Monday. But Jane Foley of Rabobank strategists cautioned investors “at the risk of failing to face up to the severity of the issues of politics and economics is now facing the United Kingdom.” “There is plenty of room for the current round of short-covering in the GBP to dissolve fast.” Rabobank expects GBP vs Greenbacks to “drop sharply” in the weeks ahead, taking it to $1.2400 in three months. Lena Komileva, chief economist at G+ Economics, echoes this, saying the market risk “under-estimating the political obstacles to a smooth transition of the U.K..”